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Rock Radio Station in New York Shifts to FM News Format

Listeners to 101.9 FM in New York, until recently a struggling alternative rock station, got a taste over the weekend of what its new owners hoped would be a successful new format: FM news.

As on most news and talk stations, which are more common on the AM band, short news reports cycled around the clock, interspersed with traffic updates.

But the pace on 101.9, whose call letters are WEMP-FM, was breezier, with more entertainment reports and some lighthearted segments on family and health. And in what may be crucial for the station, a majority of the ads were aimed at women.

WEMP is the creation of Merlin Media, a new company led by Randy Michaels, a longtime radio executive ousted as chief of the Tribune Company last year after a scandal over boorish behavior. Backed by GTCR, a Chicago private equity firm, Merlin paid Emmis Communications $110 million to $130 million in June for majority shares in three of its rock stations in Chicago and New York.

Walter Sabo, Merlin’s chief operating officer, said two of the stations, WWWN in Chicago and WEMP, would take on the FM news format, and that the company had hired 100 journalists.

“You can’t listen to spoken word in the background,” Mr. Sabo said of the new format. “You have to listen to it in the foreground, so every listener is an active listener.”

The new stations are aimed at “working families,” Mr. Sabo said, but early signs show a strong interest in women. In a WEMP online survey, for example, consumers are asked to select their favorite shoes; the five choices are all women’s brands, including Nine West and Manolo Blahnik.

In New York, WEMP replaces one of the area’s few remaining rock stations, WRXP. Since the 1990s, when alternative acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam could cross over to mainstream success, rock’s audience has splintered and the format has struggled to keep a foothold, said Sean Ross, who writes an industry newsletter, Ross on Radio.